Nigeria’s Most Violent Quarter Since 1997 Tests Tinubu’s 2027 Re-election Bid –Report | Sahara Reporters

According to Serwat, ACLED data shows a 30% increase in the targeting of civilians by insurgents and bandit groups in Nigeria this year.

Nigeria’s worsening insecurity could pose a serious challenge to President Bola Tinubu’s bid for a second term, with data showing a sharp rise in attacks targeting civilians and the country recording its most violent quarter in decades.

Ladd Serwat, senior Africa analyst at the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), told Semfor Africa that the second quarter of 2026 was the most violent in Nigeria since the organisation began collecting data in 1997.

According to Serwat, ACLED data shows a 30% increase in the targeting of civilians by insurgents and bandit groups in Nigeria this year.

“The spread and intensification of armed banditry across northern and central Nigeria” drove the escalation, Serwat told Semafor.

The assessment comes amid a worsening wave of kidnappings and attacks across the country, including the mass abduction of hundreds of people from mosques in northern Nigeria this month.

The latest incidents followed the death in captivity of a retired army general who was kidnapped while travelling to a wedding, as well as the abduction of more than 100 other travellers in two separate incidents in the northwest.

Tinubu, who began a three-week vacation in Europe on Sunday, ordered the army and police to launch a rescue operation for about 600 people kidnapped in Niger State.

The security crisis comes at a politically sensitive time for the President, who is campaigning for re-election in 2027. While his administration has highlighted its economic achievements, it has been less vocal about its record on security.

Tinubu’s 2023 manifesto was anchored on major national security promises, including “a proactive and intelligence driven security approach,” but his administration has largely focused during its first term on addressing Nigeria’s economic challenges.

His team released a scorecard of his three-year performance this month that focused largely on economic results.

“Certainly in the first couple of years of this administration, insecurity did not seem to be the priority,” said James Barnett, a non-resident fellow at the Hudson Institute who has lived and researched conflict in Nigeria.

“That doesn’t mean there weren’t security policies being implemented, but it was not really getting the top level engagement.”

The growing insecurity has also become a political issue, with opposition figures Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, who, alongside Tinubu, were the major contenders in the 2023 presidential election, pledging to hire more security personnel and “decentralize security management” if elected.

Tinubu, for his part, has backed legislation that would allow Nigerian states to establish their own police departments and has tasked a security committee with drafting a five-year “strategic defence operations plan.”

However, the frequency of kidnappings and attacks has deepened public anxiety, with Nigerians increasingly facing the risk of abduction in places ranging from churches and mosques to schools, roads and their homes.

Since assuming office, Tinubu has implemented sweeping economic reforms, including the removal of the fuel subsidy, naira devaluations, changes to tax laws and measures aimed at reviving investment in the oil and gas sector.

But critics and security analysts say the government has not demonstrated the same urgency in tackling insecurity.

“Despite sustained military pressure, there’s no evidence that Nigeria’s insecurity is abating in substantial terms,” Taiwo Hassan Adebayo, a researcher at the Institute for Security Studies in South Africa, told Semafor.

“Nigerian security planners need to ask and respond to the questions about how the armed groups source their weapons, get fuel they use to power their bikes, and access Starlink for connectivity in their remote locations where telco service is off,” Adebayo said.

The security challenge is also becoming increasingly lucrative for criminal groups.

Between July 2025 and this year, ransom payments for abductions in Nigeria tripled to $5.8 million, according to Nigeria-based research organization SBM Intelligence. The organisation also reported a 66% year-on-year increase in the number of kidnapping victims.

Analysts say the security landscape has become more complicated with the expansion of rival Boko Haram factions and al-Qaida affiliates such as JNIM, which are increasingly competing with one another in Nigeria.

The proliferation of armed groups has also made it difficult at times to distinguish between them and accurately attribute attacks.

Dengiyefa Angalapu, an analyst at the Center for Democracy and Development in Abuja, said some groups that were initially invited to help communities defend themselves against insurgents had subsequently transformed into terrorist organisations.

One such group is Lakurawa, which entered Nigeria from the Sahel after some communities in the northwest resorted to self-help for protection.

Nigeria declared the group a terrorist organisation last year over its alleged links to al-Qaida.

Angalapu said the shifting identities of such groups had further complicated Nigeria’s fight against guerrilla warfare.

“They sometimes mix very well with their communities. Sometimes they are bandits by night, and community members by day.”

Nigeria’s security problems also extend beyond banditry and terrorism, with farmer-herder conflicts, separatist movements in the southeast and oil theft in the Niger Delta contributing to what Jervin Naidoo, a political analyst at Oxford Economics Africa, described as an “increasingly layered and geographically dispersed” security crisis.

The situation has raised concerns about the cost of insecurity to businesses and the wider economy.

Tinubu reshuffled the military’s top leadership following the threat of a coup late last year. The new military leadership subsequently participated in a joint operation with the United States in December targeting terrorist enclaves.

This year, Tinubu has increased the salaries of army officers and created additional army units, while National Security Adviser Nuhu Ribadu has met with US officials three times since November to brief Washington on Nigeria’s efforts to prosecute terrorists and combat terrorist financing.

However, Barnett said much of the government’s response had focused on its international relationships.

“a lot of the Nigerian government’s reaction has had to do with managing diplomatic relations,” he said.

While acknowledging that higher military pay and increased firepower were positive measures, Barnett said it remained to be seen whether Tinubu would maintain the political energy required to implement deeper structural reforms beyond the election season.

Not all assessments of Tinubu’s security record have been negative.

Ebenezer Obadare, the Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow for African Studies, identified about half a dozen military operations under the Tinubu administration that resulted in the rescue of hostages and argued that “the Nigerian President has every reason to be delighted.”

He also pointed to the killing of at least four high-profile terror group leaders and more than 1,000 terrorists with US assistance as evidence that the tide in Nigeria’s prolonged battle against jihadist insurgency “has turned in favor of the Nigerian authorities.”

However, Obadare acknowledged that Nigeria’s security situation “remains critical” and said continued cooperation with the US would be necessary “for the foreseeable future.”

The security situation in Nigeria has also attracted increased attention in Washington.

The US Department of Defense plans to withdraw 200 troops deployed to Nigeria in February as part of the Trump administration’s counter-terrorism assistance programme. The Pentagon said the mission generated “significant security returns.”

President Donald Trump’s aides and Republican political allies have frequently framed US security engagement with Nigeria primarily around the protection of Christians, whom they say are being particularly targeted by jihadist groups.

The issue remains a leading priority for a joint working group that said Abuja had taken steps to prosecute hundreds of terror suspects and strengthen law enforcement capacity.

Nigeria has spent at least $9 million on lobbying in the US to counter concerns about Tinubu’s commitment to security.

However, the spending has not prevented Trump allies, including US Senator Ted Cruz, chairman of the Senate’s Africa subcommittee, from threatening sanctions and an aid freeze over what they continue to describe as “mass violence against Christians and religious minorities.”